The Chairman, United Bank of Africa Plc, Mr. Tony Elumelu, has called on African leaders to prioritise policies and regulatory issues impeding youths’ innovations as it would aid foreign investments in the continent.
Elumelu, who is also the founder of Tony Elumelu Foundation, spoke alongside World Bank President, Jim Kim, and LinkedIn Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jeff Weiner, in a fireside chat on advancing the digital economy in Africa, at the annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington, DC.
During the discussion, he sent a strong message on the importance of leveraging entrepreneurship to enable Africa to leapfrog traditional development paths.
He said, “I speak as someone who has supported young African entrepreneurs. I see enthusiasm, intellect, determination, drive and discipline-you invest $5,000 and indeed they apply this to their purpose.
“It is our young people-the 60 percent of (African) people under the age of 30 who will come up with innovations that might help to pull Africa out of where it is today. We need to prioritise them, to give them support by removing the stifling policies holding them back. If we remove those, we will unleash their creativity onto the world.”
While moderating the discussion, Kim said policy makers in Nigeria and other African countries were ill-prepared to compete in the digital technology space.
Elumelu conceded that without critical infrastructure, driving technological advancement would be
difficult.
“You can’t talk about a digital economy in Africa without fixing critical infrastructure. Digital connectivity is a major issue in Africa and you can’t fix it if you don’t have reliable access to electricity.
“So, if we want to truly address the issue of a digital economy in Africa, these challenges have to be fixed,” Elumelu said.
